By:Curtis Morton
The way I see it, we are not the loving and caring society that we purport ourselves to be.
Now, you may well wonder how I came to such a conclusion.
Well, within the last three weeks, no fewer than three individuals, who resided in our fair land, have been found dead in their homes. The appalling part is that the three persons were found quite sometime after they were last seen in public and it therefore means that in at least two of the cases, the persons may have been dead for days and in the other case, for quite a number of hours.
Well I newa!
The bible admonitions are quite clear in Genesis 2: 18: ‘And the Lord God said, it is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.’
It tells me therefore, that God never meant for us to exist in a vacuum and it further suggests that we are supposed to look out for each other.
Okay, so circumstances may prevail, where persons unavoidably end up living alone or others may deliberately choose so to do.
In such circumstances, it is my stated belief, that every single individual should have at least one friend or relative who would invariably miss them, during the course of a given day and if not in the one day, Lawd man, two days should never pass!
I sadly recall the death of my late friend, mentor and former boss, Crispin Fahie. I had spoken to him the week prior and he was telling me all about his plans of writing a book, which would have included some of his wonderful creative works in poetry and skits.
He also had some interesting hobbies. One of them was the collection of nails found on the roads of Nevis or anywhere that he saw them. He once told me that he built a fowl house, utilizing only nails that he had found, which was a remarkable accomplishment in itself.
I did not see him again after that conversation and in retrospect, am thinking that I should have called him in the interim…but sadly, I did not.
The following week, I passed through the area of his home and noted a foul scent but someone indicated that it was a dead animal.
Imagine how heartbroken I was when I learnt later that they had found his deteriorating body in his home!
I also recall many years ago, as a young Public Health Inspector, I was called to deal with a nuisance of an exceptionally foul scent in Cox.
It did not take long to discover that it was not an animal, but one of the villagers who had not been seen for several days, who had passed away, virtually unnoticed and now his decomposing body was crying out for attention.
I duly informed the Police and I summoned my trusted gang of health workers to the scene, where under the directions of the Police Officers, they ripped off one of the doors, to expose the body of the deceased man on his floor.
Elliot’s funeral home was called to the scene, after the Medical Doctor had made his pronouncement and I remember the Undertaker spraying some kind of a liquid on the body and I was told that it was meant to lessen the odour.
When everything was over, I went home and as I removed my clothes to go into the shower, I realized that the clothes smelt like the liquid. It was a disgusting smell.
I removed those clothes and threw them into the garbage bin.
Having bathed and freshened up, I was smelling the sickening scent again.
I went and had another shower.
Now, this thing is serious. I don’t believe that anyone deserves to so die, that they are not discovered until their body is decomposing.
So, I am convinced that Don, Aben and Rudy, all had family members and friends who should have been in contact with them, more often.
It is an indictment on our society.
Me? Am at fault too. We all need to be more caring and seek to look out for each other in a real way.
So, I am committing to making sure that at least the persons who are close to me (relations and distance) and who live alone, are checked upon, as often as it is physically possible. I think we should all make similar commitments.
That’s the way I see it. How do you see it?